ack, Dave. You're such a bear
for fighting a man can't take any chances. Glad he didn't bust your
haid wide open."

"Sure he didn't?" asked the injured man. "I feel like I got to hold it
on tight so as to keep the blamed thing from flying into fifty pieces."

"Sorry. We'll take you to a doc and have it fixed up. Then we'll all
go have a drunk. That'll fix you."

"Business first," cut in Buck Rutherford.

"That's right, Dave," agreed the owner of the horse ranch. "How about
that gunnysack? Where did you hide it?"

Dingwell played for time. He had not the least intention of telling,
but if he held the enemy in parley some of his friends might pass that
way.

"What gunnysack, Hal? Jee-rusalem, how my head aches!" He held his
hands to his temples and groaned again.

"Your head will mend--if we don't have to give it another crack," Buck
told him grimly. "Get busy, Dave. We want that gold--_pronto_. Where
did you put it?"

"Where _did_ I put it? That willing lad of yours has plumb knocked the
answer out of my noodle. Maybe you're thinking of some one else,
Buck." Dingwell looked up at him with an innocent, bland smile.

"Come through," ordered Buck with an oath.

The cattleman treated them to another dismal groan. "Gee! I feel like
the day after Christmas. Was it a cannon the kid hit me with?"

Meldrum pushed his ugly phiz to the front. "Don't monkey away any
time, boys. String him to one of these cottonwoods till he spits out
what we want."

"Was it while you was visiting up at Santa Fe you learnt that habit of
seeing yore neighbors hanged, Dan?" drawled Dingwell in a voice of
gentle irony.

Furious at this cool reference to his penitentiary days, Meldrum kicked
their captive in the ribs. Hal Rutherford, his eyes blazing, caught
the former convict by the throat.

"Do that again and I'll hang yore hide up to dry." He shook Meldrum as
if he were a child, then flung the gasping man away. "I'll show you
who's boss of this _rodeo_, by gum!"

Meldrum had several notches on his gun. He was, too, a
rough-and-tumble fighter with his hands. But Hal Rutherford was one
man he knew better than to tackle. He fell back, growling threats in
his throat.

Meanwhile Dave was making discoveries. One was that the first two men
who had attacked him were the gamblers he had driven from the Legal
Tender earlier in the evening. The next was that Buck Rutherford was
sending the professional tinhorns